What is common to “Happy Diwali” and booze in taxis?

Apparently, both are “haraam” in Islam.

Below are two completely different news reports…but both equally unbelievable – and both left me aghast.

“Don’t Bring That Booze into My Taxi” in which Daniel Pipes has written about “A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP)” where Muslim taxi drivers have been refusing to carry passengers “visibly carrying alcohol”…

In the words of taxi driver quoted in the article, “It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol.”…Sometime in 2000, Muslim taxi drivers asked the Metropolitan Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor – or even suspected of carrying liquor – without being banished to the end of the line. MAC rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.

The number of Muslim drivers has by now increased, to the point that they reportedly make up three-quarters of MSP’s 900 cabdrivers. By September 2006, Muslims turned down an estimated three fares a day based on their religious objection to alcohol, an airport spokesman, Patrick Hogan, told the Associated Press, adding that this issue has “slowly grown over the years to the point that it’s become a significant customer service issue.”

“MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers unwilling to carry alcohol could get a special color light on their car roofs, signaling their views on alcohol to taxi starters and customers alike.” 

But as Daniel has rightly pointed out, “the two-light plan intrudes the Shari‘a, or Islamic law, with state sanction, into a mundane commercial transaction in
Minnesota. A government authority thus sanctions a signal as to who does or does not follow Islamic law.

What of taxi drivers beyond those at MSP? Other Muslims in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country could well demand the same privilege. Bus conductors might follow suit. The whole transport system could be divided between those Islamically observant and those not so.

Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples. For that matter, they could ban men wearing kippas, as well as Hindus, atheists, bartenders, croupiers, astrologers, bankers, and quarterbacks.

There is more on this at More on Those Minnesota Taxi Drivers.”

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Meanwhile in Malaysia, “The head of
Malaysia’s Shariat Department has asked Muslims in the country not to greet Hindus on Diwali.

The PTI news report mentioned that, “Fauzi Mustaffar, head of Shariah department, in an email directive to office staff has said that Diwali is a religious festival in which Hindu deities were worshipped and greeting Hindus on the occasion was like practicing polytheism to Muslims.

‘So Muslims who have inadvertently wished Hindus a Happy Diwali, Happy Durga Pooja or Happy Lakshmi Pooja must immediately repent and not repeat it in the future,’ Fauzi said in his e-mail, according to The Star daily.

The government was quick to distance itself from this view – but stopped short of calling it wrong or incorrect interpretation of the law.

Sometimes I wonder where will this end?